<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 6px; border: 0px; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 47, 109);">QE2 left to ‘rot away’ in Dubai</h2><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;">Dubai: An iconic name in world cruise shipping has been left to rust away, local media in the Middle East are reporting. The Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2), one of the most famous ships in the history of Cunard Line, was sold to Dubai to be turned into a floating hotel in 2008. However, local newspaper, Arabian Business, reports that the vessel has now been left alongside Port Rashid to “rot away” as this picture attests.</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;">The ship was meant to head to Cosco Shipyard in China last year for refurbishment. However, it has not left the United Arab Emirates and its condition is worsening.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;">While there have been some reports that the ship will be scrapped, QE2, which turns 50 in 2017, has been an expensive mistake to date for Dubai’s Drydocks World who bought it just ahead of Dubai’s dramatic financial crash.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;">Marc-Antoine Bombail, author of several books on the QE2, told Arabian Business: "The Queen Elizabeth 2 has to be preserved for future generations because she is a vision of majesty, power, luxury and elegance with no equivalent in todays shipping world. To let QE2 rot away or get scrapped would be a supremely uncivilised outrage. What is happening to her since 2008 is just nonsense.”</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;">Drydocks World has declined to comment on the future of QE2. &nbsp;[21/11/14]</p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: normal;"><br></p>